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About this blog: I am a perpetually hungry twenty-something journalist, born and raised in Menlo Park and currently working at the Palo Alto Weekly as education and youth staff writer. I graduated from USC with a major in Spanish and a minor in jo... (More)

About this blog: I am a perpetually hungry twenty-something journalist, born and raised in Menlo Park and currently working at the Palo Alto Weekly as education and youth staff writer. I graduated from USC with a major in Spanish and a minor in journalism. Though my first love is journalism, food is a close second. I am constantly on the lookout for new restaurants to try, building an ever-expanding "to eat" list. As a journalist, I'm always trolling news sources and social media websites with an eye for local food news, from restaurant openings and closings to emerging food trends. When I was a teenager growing up in Menlo Park, I always drove up to the city on weekends with the singular purpose of finding a better meal than I could at home. But in the past year or so, the Peninsula's food culture has been totally transformed, with many new restaurants opening and a continuous stream of San Francisco restaurants coming south to open Peninsula outposts. Don't navigate this food boom hungry and alone! Feed me your tips on new chefs and eats and together we'll share them with the broader community. (Hide)

Chef Zhao Kitchen opens in Palo Alto

Palo Altans who live near the Edgewood Plaza Shopping Center now have a new neighborhood dining option: Chef Zhao Kitchen, a Chinese restaurant.

Chef Zhao Kitchen opened in late May in Suite 120 at 2180 West Bayshore Road.

Chef Zhao Kitchen while under construction in late 2015. Photo by Elena Kadvany.

Jun Zhao, who owns Shanghai Garden in Cupertino, is behind the new restaurant. His wife, Hong Xia, said in December that many patrons of the Cupertino restaurant live in the Palo Alto area and had been asking them to open another location.

Chef Zhao Kitchen offers not only a la carte dining but also bento boxes for lunch, dim sum, private dining and catering.

In one section of the restaurant, customers can order from a hot bar with prepared foods. The "bento combo" option — your choice of three items with a side of rice for $11.99 — is available from 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., according to a menu posted on Yelp. Lunch ends at 4 p.m. and all bento boxes are served to go until 5:30 p.m.

The full menu is extensive with traditional noodle, soup, seafood, meat and vegetable dishes like chow mein, honey-walnut prawns, beef with broccoli, fried rice and much more. Check out a photo of the menu on Yelp here.

On the weekends, Chef Zhao Kitchen also serves "brunch" items including deep-fried Chinese twisters, crisp-fried sticky rice toast and wrapped sticky rice rolls with pork, according to a menu posted on Yelp.

Posted by Eater,
a resident of Mountain View,
on Jun 1, 2016 at 10:55 am

Unless there's a connection (and the post here doesn't mention any), the name of the new place will cause real confusion with the well-established Chef Zhao Bistro in Mtn. View off Central (aka Alma). Often referred to simply as "Chef Zhao," and something of an inter-city destination restaurant itself, partly because it's easy to get to, but mostly for the reason that it offers truly authentic Sichuanese food (its chef was a cooking instructor in Chengdu, the Sichuanese provincial capital and the city that spawned Fuchsia Dunlop's popular modern Sichuanese cookbooks in English, after she herself studied cooking there).

Posted by Greg David,
a resident of Old Mountain View,
on Jun 1, 2016 at 11:15 amGreg David is a registered user.

I can't help but wonder how much emphasis they place on their name relative to their reputation amongst diners? Chef Zhao bistro, when they took over their location at 400 Moffett Blvd., changed the sign on the building, but never changed the sign up front, which still say "TC China Bistro". They have a very strong ethnic following and the place is often packed on Fridays and Saturdays.